Small Business Planning

As independent financial advisors and entrepreneurs ourselves, we understand the challenges business owners and professionals often face. Your retirement needs don’t end with you or your family – you have a team of employees to consider.

So, we call on both our professional expertise and our personal insight as we help you develop, introduce and manage a 401(k) plan suited to the needs of your business and the people who make it successful.

As 401(k) advisors, our team can assist you by:

• Clearly defining the parameters of our relationship and establishing reasonable expectations

  Developing an overall retirement plan strategy with specific goals is critical in helping to ensure success.

• Evaluating and selecting service providers

  We can diagnose the particular aspects of service delivery that are most important to your situation, and recommend appropriate alternatives.

• Performing plan-design consulting

  A review of the plan design is very important because plan-design provisions can make a big difference in whether the plan meets your needs.

• Assisting in designing an investment policy statement (IPS)

  As a plan sponsor, you can minimize your fiduciary liability by implementing an IPS, which outlines a detailed, prudent plan of action for the trust's investment managers and advisors to follow.

• Managing the implementation and transition to new providers

  This is often one of the most problematic functions, as many "fired" providers are less than anxious to cooperate with new providers. Having one individual responsible for coordination makes the process less stressful for you.

• Serving as the primary contact for all aspects of plan servicing

  We'll act as the single source responsible for managing all the moving parts of your plan, and will troubleshoot as needed. You and your employees will never wonder who to call when problems or questions arise.

• Providing ongoing plan reviews

  This includes discussing overall plan service, operation and results, participation levels, deferral percentages, loans, nondiscrimination testing, enrollment communication strategies, and all other items of importance.

• Managing employee communication and investment education

  We're available to your employees by phone and, periodically, in person for individual consultation. If enrollment and/or education teams from the provider are necessary due to multiple company locations, we will coordinate those efforts. We can also provide supplemental educational materials, if desired.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How is a 401(k) advisor compensated?

  An advisor can be paid either from fees charged directly to the plan participants or plan sponsor, or from a portion of the investment management or servicing fee built into the pricing structure of a packaged product. In some cases, a combination of the methods may be used.

• What about fees and expenses?

  Aren't the fees higher if my company uses an advisor? The fee structures in 401(k) arrangements can be very complex; however, like many other products and services, you often get what you pay for. Certain providers compete based on cost, but cheapest is rarely the best. We'll provide you with the information you will need to thoroughly evaluate the costs of different providers.

• Is online advice for 401(k) participants going to make personal contact with an advisor obsolete?

  Just the opposite is true. As knowledgeable 401(k) advisors, we embrace technology as a tool to help us fulfill our role more efficiently. We'll be glad to discuss the different ways we use technology with both plan sponsors and participants.

• Is it true that you can only use "load" funds, or funds your company allows?

  Because Raymond James has selling agreements with nearly 9,000 load and no-load funds, we can provide virtually any fund offered. While a common misconception is that the selection of a "no-load" provider is less costly than one that builds the advisor's fee into the package, the reality is that most no-load providers actually have classes of fund shares designed specifically for advisors, with compensation to advisors built into the fund expense structures.